remember

nyet deneg

when inflation rates were at their peak, the russian banks ran out of rubles. during these weeks in 1992, i went with other american friends with my dollars in the early hours of the morning, and waited in queues with other customers to try to change money. usually by the time we got to the front of the line, the rubles were gone, and a handwritten sign reading "nyet deneg" hung in the door, announcing that the bank had no money.

ordering phone calls

in 1992 russia, it wasn't easy to make international phone calls. when i wanted to call home, i had to go to a central telegraph/telephone office to "order" a  call three days before the actual event. three days later i would return, and sit in a booth, while a russian operator connected me with my family.

sometimes, after three days of anticipation, the call would fail or my family would be away, and i would go back to my dorm room very lonely.

[written 25 september; posted 26 september]

overlapping stamps

there was 800% inflation over the five months i lived in st petersburg, and--like much of the infrastructure--the postal service couldn't keep up. as a result, to send a letter to america, it took more than twenty stamps, which we affixed in an overlapping pattern covering nearly the entire surface of the envelope.  

train to moscow

during the spring i lived in st petersburg, i took a train journey to moscow. the train took twelve hours, and i can still remember wrapping up in my wool blankets, staring out the window into the snowy black night, and falling asleep to the even rhythm of the train bouncing over the joins in the tracks. we travelled through the cold night, arriving in moscow in the early morning. yeltsin was in power, the new russia was young and red square was amazing.

grey arrival

i remember arriving in the st petersburg airport, and waiting in the baggage area for my luggage. my bags were huge and heavy and had no wheels. i could barely drag them myself. the floor of this area was covered in puddles from melted snow and mud.

russian winter

i lived in st petersburg for the winter months of 2002, just after the walls of communism came crumbling down, bringing down the infrastructure and morale of this wonderful city with it. life was hard, it was cold. food and staples were in shortage. i learned more in these four months about myself and the world than any other period of my life so far.